There was nothing about the dingy bar near the bus station in Alindao, some 500km east of Bangui, to suggest it would find itself at the heart of a diplomatic storm. Until last year it was just another meeting point for weary travellers attracted by its late-night electricity and its sex workers. But it was nevertheless in this remote unprepossessing watering hole that began a saga that culminated in the expulsion of Gabon's contingent in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization